Mr. Speaker, that was a very insightful question and it is one of the themes that I have been pushing pretty well all my life, certainly long before I became a member of Parliament. I strongly believe that all of our actions, whether they are moral or immoral, good or bad, useful or not useful, are driven by what we think. The first thing, of course, is how we think about these things.
If there were no law for stealing vehicles, no law against murder or robbing banks, for me it would make no difference because I am not going to do those things anyway, even if I were in a country with no laws. Those sorts of things are wrong. I have that built in but a lot of people do not and therefore we need to strengthen our homes, churches and schools in all these areas of thinking.
At one time we had teaching in our schools about what it means to be a good citizen. One of the things I remember learning when I was a youngster in elementary school was that good citizens obey the laws. That is a given and we have that drummed into us. We were taught that by word and by example. We had teachers who gave us those examples. We had parents and grandparents who taught us that and regularly reinforced that.
Indeed, that is the true beginning of prevention of bad behaviours. We need to strengthen that.
I really wish that we had leadership in our country and in our provincial governments that would strengthen that part of our education component.
The member went on to ask a question concerning joyriding and the fact that nothing is being done about it. That is true for all sorts of things, whether it is shoplifting, joyriding, taking a vehicle, stealing other things, petty theft or vandalism. Although we have all been falsely accused of wanting to lock everybody up, that is not what we want.
I have huge compassion for these kids. I have been to the youth detention centre and I see the potential we have there that has the probability of being wasted if we do not turn these kids around. However something needs to be done. We cannot simply say that nothing will happen.
When these youngsters are found and brought in after a joyride, I would like to see them stand in front of the judge with their parents. Let us hold this family unit together and make them mutually accountable. None of us are an island. We all live in families of one sort or another. Let us be together on this. Let us reinforce proper behaviour, instead of blinking our eyes at improper behaviour and thereby encouraging it.
The simple rule in psychology is that whatever behaviour is rewarded is repeated. Whatever behaviour is punished, in whatever form, will generally diminish. We know that with taxation. The Liberals punish us with taxation and consequently our society is not as productive as it could be. That is only one example but there are many examples where this is true.